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Gone are the days where businesses can get away with listing themselves in the Yellow Pages phonebook and get found by all the people who need their services.
Some people might say that these were simpler times, I would just say that they were different. Back then, people who were a bit more cunning would start their business name with “123” for example “123 Plumbing Services Galway”. Why? Well actually, this is just an older form of what we now call SEO, because all businesses in the Yellow Pages and other phone books were listed alphabetically.
Smart right? So then the question remains, why do you need a website for your business, or do you even need one at all? Well, as the proud owner of Ireland’s number 1 voted website design agency – Moji, I’m probably a little biased but hear me out on the 5 main reasons that I believe that you need a website to thrive in today’s competitive and increasingly digital business landscape.
- Build Trust
How often have you had the experience of looking for a particular service or store on Google Maps and realised they don’t have a website? Maybe it was a restaurant and they didn’t have a website where you could check their menu or book a table. Perhaps it was a spa where you weren’t able to check the price of that deep tissue massage you so badly needed from all the stress caused by businesses not having websites. The list goes on.
Having a website shows your potential and existing customers that you’re serious about your business and gives you a platform to share the relevant information they need in order to make their decision on whether to choose your business or someone else’s. If you don’t have a website, you’re not even going to be part of the conversation. A fast, beautiful and clearly laid out website builds trust with your audience and ultimately makes you more money.
- Capture Leads
How many people’s emails do you have who’ve visited your Google Maps listing? None, right? Don’t get me wrong, Google Maps is a great tool but it’s so important to be able to re-target your audience. Having a website where you can gather your audience’s email addresses gives you multiple opportunities to convert potential customers into customers.
By offering something for free, a product discount or any kind of lead magnet on your website, you can start building up your email list of warm leads and re-target them down the line with other offers or products. Whenever we design websites for our clients in Ireland or overseas, we make sure to have at least 1 way of capturing email addresses set up. Check out our web design service in Ireland page to find out more about the service we offer. Email marketing is far from gone and remains one of the most effective ways to build trust and connection with your audience.
- Sell Stuff
This one should be pretty obvious but a lot of people seem to miss it. If you have anything for sale in a physical store, even if it’s just good-ol wetlook gel in your barber shop, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be selling it online. There’s a grant offered by the Local Enterprise Office called the Trading Online Voucher where they will pay for 50% up to a maximum of €2,500 of your website design costs. If you are located in a Gaeltacht area the same kind of grant is offered by Údarás na Gaeltachta called the Online Trading Scheme.
These grants are very easy to apply for and the process of getting approved is very straightforward. All of our clients who’ve applied have been approved for the grant and we can help you with the process to make it easy for you to get set up online and start making more money.
- Stay Relevant
The more that businesses of all shapes and sizes are getting their online presence in order and either getting their new website set up or giving their old one a revamp, the more other businesses are being left behind. Unfortunately, you or I don’t get to decide what mediums of communication or marketing are used by people. If we did, maybe everyone would still just pop over to people’s houses unannounced and tell stories by the fire. That sounds pretty nice to me to be honest but that’s just not how today’s society works.
In order to stay relevant you need some form of website where people can see what your business offers, find your contact details and book an appointment or buy from you and. If you have all that, that’s a good start. With my agency, we focus a lot on what we call “user experience design” which is basically just a fancy way of defining how the customer interacts with your website once they land on it, how easy it for them to find what they’re looking for and how enjoyable their overall experience on your website is. The better the user experience, the higher the conversion rate. It’s as simple as that.
- Outperform Your Competition
At the end of the day, we all have competition in business. It wouldn’t be as fun if we didn’t right? But part of that fun is to constantly try to improve ourselves and our business to do better than our competitors. The best way of doing this is to have an amazing and beautiful website where people come on and just say “wow”. You want the difference in quality to be so evident between your website and that of your competition that the choice for your customers is obvious.
Having a website with smooth animations, precise attention to detail and white space, clear call to actions and a consistent and strong style throughout the site will help you to stand out from the crowd. We create custom graphics for our websites including custom animated icons so that your site will be sure to stand out from the rest. In a lot of cases, it’s the attention to detail that will separate your business from the rest of the pack.
Summary
So these are just 5 of the many reasons why I personally think that it’s essential to have a strong and well-designed website in order to thrive in today’s marketplace. I’m sure there are plenty of others that crossed your mind as you read this too. The point is, that we live in a digital age and a website is the most powerful form of digital presence we currently have access to, so let’s use it.
If you don’t have a website or have one that’s in need of some TLC then reach out to us to book a free 30 minute consultation so that we can chat about what you need and see what we can offer you. We’re an award winning website design agency and have been voted the number 1 website design agency in Ireland so I’m confident that we can help you with whatever you need.
Thanks for reading!
For further information, and a free consultation, go to: https://moji.ie/web-design-in-ireland/
